


The Source of a Good Picture

by nagi_schwarz



Series: Traveling Man [10]
Category: Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-08
Updated: 2016-12-02
Packaged: 2018-08-20 04:40:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8236415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: Written for the comment_fic prompt: "any, any, You’re an amateur photographer and I work at a one hour photo in a drug store you go to get quick prints and I’ve fallen in love with your work au."Cameron Mitchell, retired after his plane crashed in Antarctica, takes a job working the photo station at a local drug store and starts processing pictures for one E. Lorne.





	1. Chapter 1

Cam knows he could be doing better things with his life, but he likes the pace of things at Spring City Drug. Wally, the head pharmacist, is the very model of the good Christian man. He goes to church every Sunday; he’s always home in time for supper with his wife, a retired nurse (they met while they were both serving in The Pacific); his children and grandchildren flock to his house every Saturday to work in his impressive garden and every Sunday for a massive Sunday dinner. He’s always bringing Cam fresh produce from said garden, and leftover baked goods from The Missus. Cam felt welcome from his first day at the shop. Wally is so grateful to have someone who is willing to work the photo station (and who wouldn’t be quitting after one semester) that he treats Cam like another son.  
  
Wally’s kindness and generosity is probably the only reason Cam’s parents haven’t swooped down on him, packed up his house, and dragged him back to Kansas to live with them. After all, the family home is all set up for someone with Cam’s disability, the same disability as his father.  
  
The photo station is tucked into a back corner, carefully arranged so Cam can maneuver his wheelchair around the machines. They have a small digital station, but most of the machines are for good old-fashioned film. The majority of the customers they have are retirees who’ve known Wally forever and are baffled by digital cameras. Most of them don’t even have cell phones. They smile at Cam and call him ‘son’ and ‘boy’, and he prints up their photos, packages them, leaves polite voicemails on their home phones, and smiles at them when they come to pick up the photos.  
  
Mrs. Kinross takes endless pictures of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Mr. Burrows is an avid knitter and takes photos of everything he makes before he gives it away. By the end of three months, Cam knows the names of all of Mrs. Kinross’s granchildren and half of their progeny, and he and Mr. Burrows trade knitting tips (Cam likes to knit while he waits for prints to develop).  
  
And then E. Lorne starts mailing in his rolls of film. The pictures he takes are - breathtaking. Landscapes, sunrises and sunsets, oceans and beaches, mountains and jungles, forests. E. Lorne must be some kind of traveler, given how exotic everything looks. He’s got a great eye for color and form. His pictures of the sky make Cam think of flying, and his heart aches.  
  
When he calls E. Lorne’s number to inform him that his prints are ready to pick up, all he gets is a generic voicemail greeting, but he leaves a message and hangs up.  
  
Cam is out on his day off when E. Lorne comes in to pick up his photos.  
  
Cam is excited when E. Lorne’s next roll of film comes in. This time it’s - people. Mostly men. There’s something military to their haircuts, but Cam doesn’t recognize their uniforms. They’re ordinary folk, but he captures something beautiful about each of them. One of them with a rifle shouldered, eye closed, peering through a scope. Another sparring with a pair of wooden rods - escrima? Yet another sharpening knives, and another cleaning a gun. Two of them laughing as one of them tackles the other, who is reaching for - or losing his grip on - a football. A woman, eyes narrowed, with a cigarette dangling from her lips.  
  
E. Lorne is the only person Cam has ever known to pay the extra fee to have his photos sent to him (or her, but Cam hopes it's a him), but Cam packages them up, writes his address - an apartment here in town - and drops the package in the mail.  
  
Cam accepts food from Wally, asks after the Missus, offers to fix Wally’s car, listens to Mrs. Kinross’s tales about her great-grandkids’ antics, learns a new knitting technique from Mr. Burrows, and waits for more of E. Lorne’s photos.  
  
Cam knows there’s something hideously immoral about it, but keeps copies of his favorite prints from each batch. He’d never keep prints of anything personal (because one sneaky teenager brings his naughty photos in to be printed; Cam ‘loses’ the filthiest ones but the kid doesn’t dare confront him), but he kind of adores E. Lorne’s photos. Looking at them makes Cam feel better.

So he’s very, very baffled by the next batch of photos, which feature a bunch of terrible shots of a single man, all of them badly lit, at crazy angles, some blurred, some with thumbprints over them. The man himself is handsome, though, with blue eyes, dimples when he smiles, broad shoulders. The second half of the photo batch is much better, like E. Lorne’s usual work, and the photos are all of a different man. He’s beautiful, tall and incredibly muscular, with dreadlocks, ink, and a wicked grin.  
  
Cam keeps copies of a couple of them and, on a whim, keeps a copy of the one decent shot of the other man.  
  
For the first time since the first order, E. Lorne hasn’t asked for the prints to be mailed to him.  
  
So Cam calls and leaves a message - same generic voicemail greeting - and hopes he doesn’t come down with a cold before E. Lorne comes in.  
  
Naturally, he catches the flu. His trauma-ridden body takes it much worse than it did before the crash, and The Missus, who is a trained nurse, takes very good care of him. When she’s not around, Cam flips through the photo album he’s made of E. Lorne’s prints. He wishes he could send a message to the mysterious E. Lorne and thank him or her for the beauty the photos add to Cam’s life.  
  
E. Lorne’s picked up the photos by the time Cam is back on his wheels and at the drugstore, and he’s sorely disappointed.  
  
Then there are no photos for six weeks, and Cam misses them, misses E. Lorne, misses E. Lorne’s perfect, computer-neat print on the order forms.  
  
It’s a slow day at Spring City Drug and Cam is making pretty good progress on the ugly sweater he plans on bestowing on his little brother Ash for Christmas when someone finally comes in. Cam spears his needles through the ball of yarn, wraps the work around it, and tucks it into his work bag.  
  
“Hey, how are you doing?” Cam looks up and smiles - and it’s him. The man from E. Lorne’s photos. The badly-taken photos.  
  
The man smiles. “Pretty good. And yourself?” He doesn’t get that hesitation in his eyes, the apology most people get when they see Cam is in a wheelchair.  
  
“Day just got a lot brighter,” Cam says, and winces internally, because that sounds like a come-on, but the man nods.  
  
“Slow day, huh?” He reaches into his pocket, hands Cam a roll of film. “Just here to drop these off for processing.”  
  
Cam accepts the roll of film and scoops up an envelope to package the prints in. Then he snags a pen off the desk.  
  
“Name?”  
  
“Evan Lorne,” the man says. “I can fill it out myself if you like.”  
  
Cam freezes. Then he looks up at the man. “I never knew your first name. It’s always E.”  
  
“No one at work calls me by my first name,” Evan Lorne says ruefully. He’s even better-looking in person. “In fact, I’m pretty sure none of them know it.”  
  
“Well,” Cam says, clearing his throat, “you’re a great photographer. You a professional?”  
  
“Just a hobby.” Evan shrugs. He blushes a little. “Glad you like them, though. Thanks.”  
  
“It looks like one time someone stole your camera and tried to photograph you,” Cam says.  
  
Evan laughs. “Yeah, one of the guys I work with, he was reluctant to be subject to any photos, so I let him shoot me, see what it’s like, and then we were okay.”  
  
“Good-looking guy,” Cam offers.  
  
“Everyone thinks so.” Evan rolls his eyes.

Cam has Evan’s contact information memorized, fills it out quickly.  
  
“Good memory,” Evan says, when he sees what Cam’s done.  
  
“We don’t have that many regulars,” Cam says, “and I always remember the source of a good picture.” He tucks the envelope into his ‘to do’ tray and tells Evan he can have the prints done in an hour.  
  
Evan rarely asks for them that quickly, is content to pick them up later, whereas the other regulars like to stick around and chat while Cam works, even if that means their photos take a little more than an hour.  
  
“That would be good,” Evan says. He glances at his watch. “So...when do you get off?”  
  
“In a couple of hours,” Cam says, his heart speeding up.  
  
Evan ducks his head, blushing, but then peers at Cam from beneath his lashes. “Want to go get coffee after?”  
  
“I’d love to.” Cam smiles, and his heart soars.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for the comment_fic prompt: "Any, any, wrong number."
> 
> Cam pretends the people contacting him have reached the wrong number.

Cam stared at the number on his caller ID and refused to answer it. He waited. The call went to voicemail.  
  
It was the tenth voicemail the very polite, very efficient Captain Alicia Vega.   
  
_Mr. Mitchell, this is Captain Alicia Vega of the United States Air Force. Please call me as soon as is convenient. It’s an urgent matter._  
  
Cam knew that number. What came of calls from that number was…  
  
He shut his phone and set it aside, tried to get back to reading his magazine. The body style for the new Mustang was pretty sweet. Was -  
  
His cell phone pinged. Text message.  
  
 _I know you’re there, Cam._ The sender’s number was listed as _private_.  
  
He typed back, _Sorry, wrong number._  
  
 _You can’t avoid this forever, Cam Mitchell._  
  
 _Sorry, wrong number._ Auto-fill put in the entire message after he hit the first three letters of the first word.  
  
 _Just take Captain Vega’s call already._  
  
 _Wrong number. Unsubscribe._ He tried a new tactic.  
  
 _Cam. I’m sorry. I have to do this._  
  
He sighed and began to type, _The number you’ve reached has been disconnected_ but there was a knock at the door.  
  
Grateful for the interruption, he set his phone aside, transferred himself into his wheelchair, and headed for the front door.  
  
There was another knock at the door, and he pulled it open. “Hey,” he began, with his usual spiel of _it takes me a minute to get to the door_ , because for some reason people were uncomfortable with how long it took him till he apologized for his disability. But then he saw who was standing on the door, Samantha Carter, in service mess dress. And he started to close the door in her face.  
  
She caught it. “Cam,” she said. “I’m sorry. I was given strict orders to deliver this personally. From General O’Neill himself.”  
  
Cam stared at the envelope in her hand. It had Evan’s handwriting on it. Cam had written a letter like that once, before he shipped out to a combat zone. Of course, he’d written it to his family. He’d sat down with his father beforehand, asked how to write that letter, the last words you might ever be able to give to your loved ones. He shook his head.  
  
“No.” He wheeled his chair backwards.  
  
“Colonel Mitchell,” Sam tried, but Cam shook his head again, backed up and heaved the door shut before she could stop him.  
  
So she pushed the envelope under the door, and he really ought to see to that weather stripping, and Sam said, “I’m truly sorry, Cameron. I’ll be here if - if you need me.”  
  
Cam sat in the middle of the foyer, paralyzed by the sight of that envelope, until long after Sam’s footsteps had faded. He went to reach for it, but it was too far, and he lunged for it, and then he was sprawled on the floor and sobbing, eyes blurred with tears, and he had to crawl the rest of the way to the door. He hauled himself into a sitting position and picked up the envelope with shaking hands. He turned it over, traced his name in Evan’s familiar, perfect draftsman’s print.  
  
He could barely see as he tore the envelope open, and his hands were shaking so badly he got a papercut, but finally he got the letter free.  
  
 _Dear Cameron,_ it began, and it ended, _Love, Evan_ , and broke Cam’s heart into smaller and smaller pieces with every word.


End file.
